


Conversational Enochian for the Willfully Dense

by SaltCore



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Physics, Castiel in the Bunker, Dean that's not a coping mechanism that's alcoholism, Fluff and Angst, Good Sibling Sam Winchester, Language, M/M, Pining Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-28 20:27:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11425572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaltCore/pseuds/SaltCore
Summary: A hunt goes sideways and banishing Cas is the best of their bad options. While waiting for Cas to make his way back, Dean decides there has to be a better way to do this, and he's going to find it.--Chinese translation by skysmelody at https://archiveofourown.org/works/12158784





	Conversational Enochian for the Willfully Dense

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [以诺语对话入门](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12158784) by [skysmelody](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skysmelody/pseuds/skysmelody)



> This is definitely not AU, but it's more canon adjacent. Set in some vague, post season 10 timeframe that allows me to delve into How Angels Work, since the show writers won't.

                “Dean, do it, now!” Cas shouts, punctuated by the strange reverberation of two angel blades colliding. Cas has his arms wrapped around another angel, struggling to keep from getting gutted. There’s a second one limping towards Cas, bleeding light and blood. The third is swinging clumsily at Sam, hampered by an entire magazine’s worth of lead in his shoulder joint.

                Dean’s nose is already pouring blood, courtesy of being thrown into the wall by one of these assholes, so he doesn’t even have to scramble for a knife. He can draw the banishing sigil on muscle memory alone, almost as fast as he can reload his weapon.

                There’s a familiar flash of cold white light, and then only he and Sam are left in the old house. Sam’s breathing hard, glancing back and forth like he’s expecting another attack. Dean clambers back to his feet, goes to Sam on instinct and checks his brother over.

                Sam’s fine, mostly just sweaty and dusty and jumpy from the adrenaline.

                “Dean, are you?”

                “Fine,” Dean answers, tipping his head back. He doesn’t even think his nose is broken, but Sam pokes at it anyway. Dean swats his hand away. “Let me clot in peace.”

                “Fine, have a crooked nose.”

                “You’re crooked,” Dean mumbles, digging in his pocket for his phone. The screen’s cracked (well, cracked worse) but he can still dial Cas’ number. It immediately goes to Cas’ voicemail, which is just Dean telling himself Cas isn’t answering.

                Dean frowns down at his phone when the call disconnects. Maybe it’s actually broken.

                “Sam, gimme your phone.”

                Sam rolls his eyes, but hands the phone over. It’s hardly even scratched. It’s like Sam’s not even a real hunter.

                Even using Sam’s definitely not broken phone, all Dean can get is the voicemail. He dials again, just to be sure, but now Sam is frowning at him.

                “He’s not answering?”

                “It’s not even ringing.”

                Sam takes his phone back, which is fair, because Dean was about to throw it.

                “Maybe it didn’t make it through the banishment,” Sam says in his best reasonable tone.

                Banishing looks like getting hit by a truck. It has to take a hell of a lot of energy, magic, _something_ to budge an angel, especially when it doesn’t want to be moved. A cellphone might not survive getting thrown halfway to heaven.

                Dean feels a spike of fear for Cas. He’s a damn sight tougher than a cellphone, especially these newer ones, but getting thrown to fuck knows where while trying not to get stabbed has to suck. At least he knew it was coming. Can an angel even brace for it? Dean hopes so.

                Dean scrubs a hand down his face. Gets his phone back out. Listens to his brief message to himself.

                “Okay, Cas, when you gets this, call us, okay? We’ll come pick you up.”

                Dean hangs up.

                “Let’s get the hell back to the bunker,” Sam says.

                “The fuck we are, Sam! We still don’t know where Cas landed,” Dean snaps.

                “Dean, Cas could have touched down anywhere. There’s no way of knowing if going back to the bunker is the wrong way, but those other angels know we were here. Besides, the bunker is the rendezvous, Cas knows that. And if he calls before we get back, we’ll just turn around.”

                Sam’s logic is sound, but Dean can’t help but feel like he’s abandoning Cas. Even if this round of credit cards weren’t running thin, it could be dangerous to stay here. The prospect of fighting off angels without one of their own doesn’t exactly appeal.  

                Cas is an angel, and he’s capable, and he can handle getting back to them. One little banishing spell isn’t going to be the end of him.

                Dean keeps telling himself that the entire way back to the bunker.

 

* * *

 

                “I’m turning in,” Sam sighs. “If he calls me, I’ll get you, don’t worry.”

                “Yeah, yeah,” Dean mutters. Sam lumbers off down the hall, but even six hours of driving wasn’t enough to calm Dean’s nerves. He wants a drink, but he doesn’t want to risk Cas calling and being too lit to get back on the road, so he settles himself in a chair and opens his laptop. Plugs his phone in too, just to be safe.

                It’s a long shot, but he tries to track Cas’ phone, since his laptop is on anyway.

                The last location is that stupid abandoned house. Cas’ phone hasn’t registered a GPS hit since about the time Dean banished him. Dean should have known.

 

* * *

 

                Hours later, and with still no call and no location, Dean slaps the laptop shut. He grumbles to the silent bunker that he’s going to sleep. He takes his phone, by now completely charged, and turns the ringer up as he makes his way to his room.

 

* * *

 

                Dean wakes with a start. Without any windows, it’s always hard to tell how time is passing in the bunker, and Dean’s room is well into the bowels of the place. He scrambles for his phone, first patting down the nightstand, then feeling along the bed for it. It takes an embarrassingly long time to remember the lamp.

                His phone is under his pillow, and he thumbs the unlock button. No missed calls, no texts. He’s been asleep for a lot longer than he meant. He runs down the hall to Sam’s room, and then back towards the kitchen when he finds no trace of Sam there.

                “Morning,” Sam calls from halfway into the fridge.

                “Did you hear from Cas?”

                Sam straightens up, sighing.

                “No, still nothing.”

                “Me neither.”

                “Well, that settles it. His phone’s probably fried.” Sam hums. “He’s probably way out in the middle of nowhere too, if he hasn’t found a way to talk to us yet.”

                “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Dean growls.

                “Well, no, but c’mon, Dean. He wasn’t hurt when you banished him, and like, the wildlife isn’t going to bother him. Hell, he could have crash landed in a vamp nest, and it would have been an improvement.”

                The thought of Cas having to fight a nest of vampires turns his stomach, even though he knows for a fact that there’s not a single monster left walking that can so much as ruffle his feathers. 

                “How are you so calm?” Dean snaps, fists bunched up at his sides.

                “I’m worried, man, I really am, but it’s not even been a full day. If he’s in Siberia or whatever it’s gonna take him awhile to get to a car or a phone or something. We just have to wait for him to find us.”

                That doesn’t really help, and Sam seems to notice, because he steps closer and clasps one hand to Dean’ shoulder.

                “Dean, we know he’s fine. He’s got that warding tattooed on his vessel, and we’ve never known two angels to get banished to the same spot, and he knows where to find us. We’ve got no reason to believe he’s not hiking this way right now. If that changes, we’ll do something about it.”

                Dean scrubs his hands through his hair. Sam’s making perfect sense, but Dean can’t help that cold lump in his chest because _he just doesn’t know_. Because while Sam could be right, and Cas could be skipping through the woods like goddamn Goldilocks right now, he could just as easily be burnt out somewhere Dean will never find. And fuck but Dean wasn’t the one who did it, who sent him careening away.

                Sam shakes him a little, hunching to catch his eyes.

                “I’ll make breakfast.”

                That gets Dean’s attention.

                “Oh _hell_ no, I am not eating your garbage food.”

 

* * *

 

                Dean’s managed to keep himself busy all day, but his phone is like a mill stone. The silence of it, with stray light bouncing along the cracks in the glass, as he checks it over and over, just in case, is suffocating. Sam doesn’t even protest when Dean swipes his phone to check it too, says nothing after his assurance the first time that is was on and ready.

                That night he disappears into his room with the bottle of whiskey Sam pretends he doesn’t know about.

 

* * *

 

                The next morning, hungover and miserable, he puts his phone out of its misery against the kitchen floor, and then has to go out to the Impala and fish an older one out of the glove box. Sam finds him trying to fit the newer, too small SIM card into the slot.

                “I’ll see what I can dig up,” Sam says.

 

* * *

 

                They know summoning spells, but they don’t know what they do to an angel that can’t fly. Dean decides against it, and Sam doesn’t argue.

                Searching for the phone’s location keeps turning up nothing, but Dean keeps trying even though he knows it’s pointless.

                When Sam can’t see he prays, short and sharp.

                _Cas, Castiel, you fucking get back to us right the hell now._

 

* * *

 

                Five days after Dean banished Cas they haven’t heard anything, haven’t been able to find anything. Sam’s tried locating spells, tried to track down new charges to the credit cards they gave Cas at the start of the last hunt. (When Dean passed out drunk the first time, Sam started searching for news of deaths that looked like angels. There was a deluge of news, and most of it was old, from the infighting after they fell from heaven. Sam didn’t find anything at all that looked like it could have been Cas. He scrubbed his search history after.)

                Dean stopped making a secret of his drinking after breaking his phone, but there’s a small part of him that acknowledges that Sam’s concerned looks are entirely justified. He’s drinking dead guy scotch for breakfast. It’s probably the good stuff too, but Dean started with the rotgut two days ago and he really can’t tell.

                Being stumbling drunk is the only thing that’s keeping him put though, because he can’t do shit but that doesn’t stop him from wanting to turn the entire continent upside down.

                Dean closes his eyes, and one idea bubbles up to the forefront.

                “What’re th’r names, Sammy?”

                “Huh?”

                “The names of those bastard angels.”   

                “I don’t know. I’m sure Cas will be able to tell us when he gets home.”

                “I need ‘em _now,_ Sammy.”

                Sam sighs.

                “Why, Dean?”

                “Gonna summon ‘em. Gonna teach ‘em a lesson.”

 

* * *

 

                _Cas, Cas, I’m sorry, when are you coming home, I shouldn’t have done it, I’m sorry, where are you?_

 

* * *

 

                Seven days in, and both Winchesters’ phones have been silent. Sam’s taken to checking for reports of missing cars, vagrancy charges, anything that could be Cas.

                There’s nothing, and he doesn’t know if that’s good or bad anymore.

 

* * *

 

                Dean hasn’t been really sober in days. Sam’s been trying to cut his drinks with water and feed him, but he’s falling apart. Dean’s never waited well, but this is a level of waiting badly Sam hasn’t seen in a long, long time.

                 Cas has disappeared on them before, but this time Dean had banished him himself, and Sam knows Dean blames himself, like those angels jumping them was something Dean could have known about.

                Logically, Sam knows that this is nothing, that there’s any number of perfectly innocuous reasons Cas still isn’t back, hasn’t called, but he’s starting to feel the dread that’s consumed Dean.

                If something’s happened to Cas, it’s going to hurt him, but Sam’s terrified of what it will do to Dean.

 

* * *

 

                _Cas, you fucker, why? Why did you have to tell me to do it?_

 

* * *

 

                Dean thinks the pounding on the door is a storm at first. Can’t rouse himself to care about it until he sees Sam look over his shoulder.

                Dean staggers to his feet, his chair crashing to the ground behind him. Sam gets up to steady him, but he pushes him aside, pulls a knife out of his boot just in case.

                He drags himself to the door, not thinking very hard about who could be on the other side. He has a couple of false starts opening it, and the pounding is unrelenting. Finally he hauls it open, forgetting to raise his knife as he does. He ends up dropping it anyway.

                Cas is there, hand still raised, frowning slightly.

                Dean gapes. He can’t help it. Cas stares back, his hand falling to his side. He’s slightly more rumpled than usual, with really, really muddy shoes, but he looks fine, almost normal even.

                Dean grabs him by the shirt and drags him inside. Cas, bewildered, allows it.

                “You fucking shithead, where the fuck have you been!” Dean snarls.

                Cas starts to speak, but Dean cuts him off before he can even start.

                “Are you all right? Those bastards didn’t hurt you did they?”

                Sam runs up the stairs to shut the door as Dean starts clumsily patting Cas down for injuries. Cas looks over him to Sam, eyebrows arched up.

                “He’s very drunk, Sam.”               

                “Fuck you, you’ve been fuck knows where, you don’t get to talk.”

                Dean, apparently satisfied Cas isn’t hurt, is caught between hugging and shaking the angel, really only managing to hang off him.

                “What the fuck is wrong with you, why didn’t you call. You fucking call us, so we can get you. You don’t just leave us in the dark.”

                “Dean, lay off,” Sam says, pulling his brother back. Dean shrugs out of Sam’s grip, huffing. Cas is still staring at the both of them.

                “I lost my phone,” he says softly.

                “It happens,” Sam says before Dean can open his mouth. “C’mon, let’s sit down. Fill us in on what happened.”

                Sam steers his brother back toward the stairs, but Dean doesn’t budge until Cas starts moving. He sways, brushing repeatedly into Cas, far more than Sam thinks is normal. Even blacked out, Dean’s good at keeping on his feet. If Cas notices, he’s graciously ignoring it.

                Sam deposits Dean in one of the chairs in their makeshift den, before holding up one finger to Cas and darting into the kitchen. He comes back with a glass of water and shoves it into Dean’s palm, muttering _no excuses now, just fucking drink it_. It says a lot that Dean doesn’t even protest.

                “We’ve been worried, man. Where have you been?” Sam asks.

                “I touched down in western Montana,” Cas starts. He’s holding himself stiffly, and if it were anyone else Sam would worry he was in pain, but Cas at ease tends to look more like a soldier at attention. “Tambriel was very determined to attack, and to dislodge his vessel I had to briefly _dematerialize_.”

                His voice curls up around ‘dematerialize’ like he’s unsure, and Sam barely bites his tongue. He wants to know if Cas means it literally or if it’s some kind of metaphor, but he’ll ask later. Cas turns to Dean.

                “That’s when I lost my phone. I forgot to keep track of it, and it crashed against firmament. As did Tambriel. I didn’t notice it was gone until I was well into my _descent_. Without it, I thought it best to simply begin my way back. So I walked.”

                “Car! Why didn’t you take a car!” Dean shouts, throwing his arms up.

                “I was hardly going to steal a car when I was uninjured and you both were in no danger,” Cas says, scowling at Dean. 

                “Fine. Did you forget how your credit cards work?” Dean grumbles.

                Cas stares straight ahead, completely expressionless. He’s not hurt, so that must be the embarrassed kind of forgetting how to have a body.

                “I believe I left my wallet in the floor of the Impala,” Cas says quickly and quietly.

                Dean stares, wide eyed, and Sam laughs. He can’t help it. He lobs a pillow from the couch at Cas, who frowns at him in offense.

                “You’re on grocery duty for the next month. And watch out, or Dean will staple your wallet back on.”

                Sam glances over to his brother. Dean’s slumped in the chair, looking very much like he’s on his way to passing out. The sudden ebb of a more than a week’s worth of tension has left Sam giddy, but Dean just looks wrecked.

                Sam stands back up, pats the back of his hand against Dean’s knee.

                “C’mon, you need to sleep.”

                Dean grunts, but he’s going to be hungover as it is, Sam doesn’t want to hear about a backache from sleeping in a chair too. Sam knocks his foot into Dean’s.

                “I’m goin’, I’m goin’,” Dean mumbles. He levers himself up, swaying a little. Cas gets up, steadies him. Sam ignores the way Dean fists his hand in the back of Cas’ coat as Cas coaxes him down the hall to his bed.

 

* * *

 

                Dean wakes up, and immediately regrets it. He feels like he went ten rounds with a truck then drank a mug of shifter sludge.

                But he knows his way around a hangover, and he won’t get more sleep and won’t feel better any faster by lying here drying out. So he gets out of bed while trying to move as little of himself as possible and shuffles down the hall. There’s a lingering _something_ weighing on his thoughts. Something besides liquor happened last night.

                Sam has left him most of a pot of coffee. Dean presses his head against one cabinet door as he opens another and fumbles for a mug. He manages to get one with a minimum of noise and pours a cup.

                “Dean, you’re awake.”

                Dean drops the mug into the counter, spilling coffee, and spins on his heel. Cas, _Cas_ came back last night.

                “H—hey,” Dean says, trying to swallow. He feels dizzy for more reasons now. Cas marches up into his space, lifting one hand to his temple. There’s a rush like static electricity under his skin that he’s come to associate with grace, and suddenly his hangover vanishes. Honestly, he feels better than he has in months. His nose doesn’t even hurt anymore.

                “Thanks, Cas.”

                “I’m sorry I worried you,” Cas says, very seriously, like he hasn’t seen Dean give himself hangovers over and over.

                “You’re back, man. It’s cool,” Dean says. Cas still hasn’t moved away, but Dean likes the idea of keeping him where he can see him.

                “Is that Dean?” Sam shouts, his footsteps heavy. He’s grinning his asshole grin. “Hey, brother mine, good morning!”

                “Angel beats hangover,” Dean sneers backs.

                “Aw, Cas, if you coddle him he’ll never learn.”

                “Shut up, bitch, no one cares.”

                Dean turns back to the fridge, intent on breakfast now that he doesn’t feel like he’s been turned inside out. Something greasy and hot that will make his brother cringe.

                “Okay, Cas, I gotta know, when you said dematerialize, did you mean that literally?”

                Oh good, nerd talk.

                “There’s not a good word for it in English. It’s possible to bring a vessel as-is along to the higher order dimensions, and practically automatic when using magic like banishing, but it’s also possible to convert it without decoupling. Heaven isn’t navigable with a vessel occupying its usual dimensions, after all.”

                “So you, what, melt? And that threw the other guy off his game?”

                Dean glances back to see Cas’ puzzled look. Sam is like a dog with a bone, leaning forward a little.

                “I supposed that is not an entirely inaccurate way of describing it.”

                “And the phone didn’t come with?”

                “I was very focused on Tambriel. We were quite close to the firmament and it is no longer possible to pass through as we once did.”

                “That’s a real thing?”

                “Of course, but it’s,” Cas pauses, dons what Dean thinks of as his ‘processing’ face, “It’s _frozen_. Cracked in a few places now, but dangerous to pass near. Tambriel was thrown into it and my phone must have been as well. I was able to change course to return in this direction.”

                “So what, your phone is just chilling in space or whatever?” Dean asks, cracking eggs into a bowl.

                “It was erased from existence. It never was, now.”

                Dean pauses with one egg against the edge of the bowl. The warm feeling that had begun to curl through him listening to Sam and Cas talk immediately turns sour and cold. He doesn’t want to ask about the other angel. He only understands the barest outline of what happened after he cast the spell, but he can’t suppress the image of Castiel, shattered against a massive wall in the sky.

                He swallows, shoves the thought away, and cracks the egg. Watches the yolk slide out, followed reluctantly by the white. Doesn’t think as he pulls out a skillet and spatula, as he turns on the stove.  Sam and Cas’ conversation is a buzz behind him as he pulls odds and ends out of the fridge. Omelets appear on plates with Dean having had to hardly think at all.

                Sam pauses to hum appreciatively at the first bite, but keeps grilling Cas about _converting_ vessels, whatever that means, through the rest of breakfast. Dean stays quiet, focused on chewing. Sam offers to clean up though, and Dean lets him.

                A few minutes later, standing under the hot spray of the shower, Dean makes a decision. Banishing Cas is off the table from here on out.

 

* * *

 

                Deciding and doing, Dean finds, are very different. Research and preparation are the better part of hunting, but he doesn’t even know where to start. He learned that sigil straight from the source, and the thought of asking Cas stirs something ugly in him. It’s the same ugly thing that wires his jaw shut when he’s drowning in worry. The same ugly thing that tells him to lash out when he should pull close. The same ugly thing that’s made him bury a thousand smaller, brighter things in case they’d go rancid. That thing, that reflex keeps Dean from going to Cas.

                 So Dean starts in the library, pulling out an armful of books that could be relevant and carrying them back to his room.

 

* * *

 

                Dean reads until his eyes itch and his back hurts from sitting and his throats burns from thirst. He knows way too much about the kinds of spells angel feathers are good for and almost nothing about banishment. The only interesting thing is a hand drawn depiction of the sigils found deep in a cave somewhere in central Asia. They were found in a cavern the geologist had sworn had been closed off for millennia, but they looked like they’d been melted into the rock. He sets that book on his desk and takes the others back. 

 

* * *

 

                The catalog points him to a file full of notes subsequent researchers had made on that book and lists a few others like it. He sighs, relieved that he can make progress but exhaustion is already creeping into his bones. He goes back to the library.

 

* * *

 

                The sigil is so much more _intricate_ than Dean even realized. He knew from long experience to mind the details with magic, but the whorls and lines expressed so much more than he expected. Seems like there’s a goddamn book expressed in something he can draw in a few seconds.

 

* * *

 

                Dean’s pretty sure his brain has turned to soup. All this reading liquefied it somehow. He’s got a pile of notes written on napkins and receipts and a note pad he stole three motels ago. He hasn’t left his room to get real paper or his laptop, because he’s on a roll.

                The knocking scares him, has him leaping to feet and reaching for a weapon then feeling like an idiot. He shuffles stiffly to the door.

                Sam’s standing there, scowling.

                “Dude, it’s 10 o’clock.”

                “And?”

                “You missed dinner.”

                “You’re a big boy, Sammy, you can work the microwave.”

                “ _You_ missed dinner. You okay?”

                Sam looks deadly serious. Looks like he’s prepared to drag Dean out and make him confront the way he panicked over Cas. And even if Dean could stomach that, telling Sam what he’s doing, getting his help—

                Sam’s a goddamn miracle sometimes. This kind of thing just clicks for him. Dean could make so much more progress with his brother’s help. But then he’d have to explain why he’s doing it in the first place.

                “Yeah fine. Just catching up on my _subscriptions_ ,” Dean says, leering. Sam wrinkles his nose and steps back.

                “Yeah okay, you’re fine,” he grumbles. “See if I ever try to feed you again.”

 

* * *

 

                Enochian is bullshit. Leave it to the dicks with wings to come up with a language where a squiggle means one thing on the left and something completely different on the right.

 

* * *

 

                “Dean.”

                Dean leaps from his chair, or tries to, but one leg definitely didn’t get the memo about waking up in a panic, so when Dean steps back on it there’s a sharp tingling and then it crumples, taking the rest of him with it. Before he can face plant on the floor, where hopefully he would have died right there and spared himself the embarrassment, a hand catches him under his arm. He looks up to Cas, who’s squinting down at him.

                “I startled you awake,” Cas says.

                Dean laughs, high and nervous. Cas is still holding him like he weighs about as much as a grocery bag.

                “Yeah, you kinda did.”

                “That wasn’t my intention.”

                “It’s fine. Can you, ah, let me up? Down? Something?”

                Cas visibly ponders the decision and then lifts Dean up, holding on until he can get his feet under him. Dean dusts himself off to give himself a moment to collect his wits.

                “You missed dinner.”

                “Yeah, yeah, Sam already told me.”

                “So I brought you something. “ Cas gestures to a plate sitting on Dean’s bed, with two picture perfect sandwiches sitting on top. Dean’s lips quirk up, and then his stomach growls.

                “Thanks, Cas.”

                He shoves half of the first one into his mouth before realizing that it’s actually pretty good. He grunts his approval and chews a little slower. Cas huffs and smiles softly.

                “You’ve been in here all day.”

                That pulls Dean up short. He doesn’t choke on his food, but it’s a near thing.

                “Yeah, uh, got a bit of a side project going. Nothing much.”

                “I’d be happy to assist—”

                “No, Cas, it’s fine.”

                Cas is looking over his shoulder at the desk, and there’s no telling what angel vision can pick out. Dean shifts into Cas’ line of sight.

                “You had a haul to get back, dude, you should rest up. Binge watch something with a six pack, you earned it.”

                Cas tips his head a little, and maybe he’s considering or maybe he’s suspicious. He’s damn inscrutable sometimes.

                “Only if you get some sleep in your bed. Sleeping in the chair will hurt your back and it’s already restricted blood flow to your legs.”

                Dean rolls his eyes.

                “Fine. Only because you make a mean sandwich. “

 

* * *

 

                Dean sets alarms to go eat the next day so Sam and Cas don’t come snooping. He makes enough noise in the kitchen that he’s sure they’ll hear him, but he doesn’t bother with much more than reheating leftovers, and he doesn’t stop to talk to them. The need to make progress is buzzing under his skin like a bad itch, and every moment spent not at work feels like a dereliction of duty.

 

* * *

 

                He pins up dozens of sigils and symbols with his notes on the wall. Maybe all together he can pick out the common threads. Enochian doesn’t have the same kind of structure as a human language, but the arrangement isn’t random, he’s sure of that.  Some of these books talk about the angels having multiple heads or mouths, and speaking from different ones has different meaning. (Apparently they have a primary mouth, and one guy speculated they can be mouthed like people can be handed. Dean’s going to ask Cas when he’s done.) The weird, multi-headed speaking gets captures by where each character is placed. One guy used octaves to describe the placement; another calls them tones; but one names them like the directions on a compass, and Dean prefers that. (Besides, that way he can call Cas a Northy or an Easty.)

                The symbol in the center is important, but he knew that already. It’s the theme or the verb or the motivation.   The one in the center of banishing is movement, as in, the very concept of changing place. Place, but not time, or state, because Enochian accounts for that.

                If he squints, he thinks he can tell which part of that central sigil means change because it kind of shows up in some of the others. That seems to be a central theme in most of what the Men of Letters knew, how to get an angel to change places or forms. A few are for binding, he thinks anyway, negation is tricky. A few were recorded with essentially nothing but the place and the date they were found. One or two of those give Dean an uneasy feeling.

 

* * *

 

                “I’ve hardly seen Dean.”

                “Don’t worry, he’s probably just embarrassed. You know how he is.”

                “I really am—”

                “You don’t have to be sorry, man, you made a good call. Just let him sulk or whatever.”

 

* * *

 

                The thing that’s goddamn killing him is that that all the Men of Letters ever had was conjecture and speculation. This was academic to them. Angels hadn’t come down in force in two thousand years, at least. It didn’t matter if they got something _wrong_. They weren’t using this shit while fighting for their lives, with the, whatever, roads of the universe full of sinkholes for their buddies to fall into. They didn’t have to choose between maybe killing a friend and definitely watching him die, watching your brother die too.

                Hell, he and his kith and kin have been the only people recorded stupid enough to try to fight angels anyway. Smarter bastards lied down in fields and cowered. Fat lot of good that does when the angels come looking for a fight though.

                Dean cracks open another brittle old file.

 

* * *

 

                “Idiot, idiot, _idiot_ ,” Dean mutters under his breath, digging through his journal. He’s got one source with an accurate translation, and he’s been ignoring it this whole damn time. He puts out a folder piece of printer paper with Cas’ precise, typeface handwriting on one side and a copy of his chest x-ray on the other.

                He appraises the picture. He’s come to think of the neat rows of symbols on each rib as New Enochian. John Dee’s works are mostly New Enochian, and a lot of the other books are keyed off his.  Spells with it tend to be more verbose, but they’re better suited to the limitations of vessels. With Cas’ translation, he knows he has something he can trust. Anything that contradicts it can safely be discarded.

 

* * *

 

                Enochian has a case or tense or _something_ for describing an action that occurs now and affects the past. Dean never learned enough about English to even being to describe what the grammar’s doing. There’s barely a way to describes possessing something, like possessing a thing the way he does the Impala, but like dozens of ways to mark the rank of the speaker relative to an audience. There’s an inflection for giving orders that you came up with, orders from another angels, and orders from God. There’s a different form of address for angels in vessels and not in vessels. They don’t have a word for pink.

 

* * *

 

                His morning alarm goes off right as he’s finishing notating the southeast marking on a sigil for locating an angel of principality rank or lower. He found the same spell in an addendum in one of Dee’s apprentices wrote, but in New Enochian. He’s got a couple of others marked up like this one. Slicing something for blood always sucks, but it’s a lot faster than saying one of these New Enochian spells. Thing is, it’s a lot easier to wrap his head around New Enochian, so he’s using it as an intermediary while he gets the relationship between new and old down.

                He silences the alarm and slumps forward onto the desk. His small muscles are twitchy from the three or so carafes of coffee he’s downed overnight and his skin feels like someone put it on crooked. With a noise not unlike the one the Impala makes when being coaxed up a hill, he levers himself upright.

                He bounces off the doorframe as he wanders into the hallway. He needs to brush his teeth, and maybe find more coffee. He’s really close to, to something. A breakthrough maybe.  Definitely something.

 

* * *

 

                Sam and Cas catch him as he’s staggering through the war room.

                “Dude, you’ve been locked in your room for days. C’mon. This is ridiculous.”

                “It hasn’t been days,” Dean protests.

                “You’ve spent seventy-six of the last ninety hours in your room.”

                Dean scowls at Cas.

                “I’m approximating.” Cas shrugs, like _that’s_ what Dean’s scowling about.

                “I’ve just been, you know,” Dean mutters.

                Sam rolls his eyes.

                “I don’t want to know, man. I just want you to come out here and look at and talk to us like people do.”

                “I’m here. In all my glory. What do you want?” Dean spreads his arms.

                Sam bunches up an old napkin and throws it at Dean.

 

* * *

 

                Dean, somehow, gets wrangled into making all of them breakfast. He’s tired, but Sam and Cas stay in the kitchen with him, chopping and stirring at his direction. Nobody talks about disintegrating.

                It’s nice.

                Sam leads them away from the table to the TV and starts up a movie, some new thing in a western style. It’s not bad though Dean’s loathe to admit it, but the belly full of food drags him down. He ends up slowly sliding down the couch through the second act, and closes his eyes near the beginning of the third.

 

* * *

 

                 Dean wakes with a start.  He doesn’t remember falling asleep. He rolls, and finds himself looking up at the underside of Cas’ chin.

                “Wha?”

                “Dean, you’re awake.”

                “Shit! Sorry, Cas.”

                Dean pushes himself up as quickly as he can.

                “Man, you should have shoved me over.”

                “It’s fine, Dean. You needed the rest, and I was able to read the memoir of a late eighteenth century man of letters.” Cas holds up a slim book, bound in cracking leather.

                Dean can _feel_ the blood creep up his neck to the tips of his ears, but he can’t do something smart like flee, because Cas was reading _what_?

                Cas stares at him for a moment, then shrugs.

                “He had a deep understanding of werewolf physiology, but his descriptions of wendigoes leave much to be desired. I’m fairly certain, in fact, that he never killed one, let alone a score.”

                “Huh.”

                Cas sets the book aside, then stands. He pulls up Dean after him.

                “It’s late afternoon. You ought to eat some lunch.”

                Before Dean can formulate an excuse, Cas shuffles him into the kitchen and deposits him at the table. With frankly impressive precision and speed, Cas assembles a sandwich almost exactly the same as the one from a few nights ago. It’s delicious, but kind of uncanny.

                Cas staring at him while he eats is just familiar, on the other hand.

                “You’ve been avoiding me.”

                Cas waited till the exact moment he had a mouth full of sandwich. Dean’s been muted by deli meats and mustard. He waves his hands in a futile attempt at argument, but Cas ignores him.                

                "I understand that you think your reaction is something to be ashamed of, but you must be aware that it doesn’t alter my esteem for you. I’d happily never mention it again, if it would make you feel better.”

                Something about the sad set of Cas’ eyes makes the food taste like ash, and Dean finally swallows.

                “Dude, it’s not—” Dean drags his hand down his face. To know what it’s not, he’d have to know what it _is_.

                “It’s fine, Dean.” Cas nudges the plate a little closer.

                Dean eats the rest of his lunch in silence.

 

* * *

 

                Dean rubs his thumb over the ink. He tore the paper out of the back of a treatise on angel morphology, and it's yellowed but it was the only blank thing handy at the time. The sigil could have been anything and nothing, but he's checked and double checked every angle and stroke. He's as sure as he's ever been, which, well, doesn't count for much.

                But it’s all he’s got.

                The hardest thing was Cas' name, his true name. He's proud of that particular bit of subterfuge, getting Cas to print it out for him. Waiting for an opening had been agony, but luckily Sam is a huge nerd and it was only a matter of time and some carefully placed books before Sam started bugging Cas about angel hierarchies, which gave him his opening.

                The sigil for _Castiel_ sits in the north corner like a keystone. It looks right sitting there in a way Dean can't put his finger on.

 

* * *

 

                Dean practices the new banishing symbol constantly, drawing the constituent parts every time his hands are idle, referencing the slip of paper when he's alone. He traces out the pattern of each symbol on his thigh while waiting for the oven to heat, and practices the order under his breath as he folds his clothes.

                It needs to be as familiar as walking and breathing and shooting.

 

* * *

 

                Dean’s up again, roaming the halls. It’s probably the witching hour, or some shit like that. It’s definitely late. Dean woke up, sat straight up in bed, alert and aware. He thinks it’s the quiet of this place that does it, that after years on the road and in shitty motels he doesn’t know how to cope with the dark, velvet silence. It definitely doesn’t help that he can’t just look around and be sure that everything is in order, not like he could in most of the motels. He can’t take this place in all at once.

                He’s already walked past Sam’s room twice. It’s the first stop before he starts picking halls at random, and he usually makes sure to pass it a few times. He can lean against the door and hear Sam breathe this place is so quiet. It’s not quite as good as looking across the room, but there is a line.

                He’s getting close the library, where he left Cas curled around Sam’s laptop hours ago. From the faint, tinny sound of the laptop speakers floating through the air, he’s still there. He usually walks through the library, but not tonight. He doesn’t want Cas to see him indulging in his neurotic need to check the perimeter of their literal stronghold.

                He rounds the corner, cutting through to the kitchen. He’ll just fix a drink and sneak back to his room, try to go back to sleep.

                “Dean, you’re up late. Usually you’re exiting your third sleep cycle at about this time.”

                Dean doesn’t drop his fifth, but it’s a near thing. He spins to face Cas, who’s standing in the door frame, looking unusually stern.

                “Well, you know, gotta mix things up every once in a while.”

                Cas frowns at him harder and comes closer.

                “That’s very unhealthy, Dean.”

                Dean’s not sure if he means being up or the whiskey. He nudges the bottle slightly, trying to sneak it further behind him.

                “You’ve been up walking around for the past forty-five minutes,” Cas says. It could be an accusation of sorts, but something’s softened in his tone.

                “You could hear that?”

                “I’m an angel.”

                Dean doesn’t want to think about the implications of that, so he fixes that drink, disapproving angel be damned.

                Cas waits till he sets the bottle back on the counter, then steals it for himself and finds a glass. He pours a finger.

                “If you’re angel, then that’s not gonna do much, buddy.”

                “Then consider it an act of comradery and mind your own glass.”

                Dean huffs a quiet laugh, while Cas regards him with a perfectly neutral poker face.

                “Guess there’s not much need to check for trouble when there’s an angel perched over the door.”

                “I think you’ll find I’m a level below the door.”

                “Smart ass.”

                This time Cas smiles into his glass and takes a sip without even a flicker of his this-tastes-like-molecules face, probably out of politeness.

                They stand there together for a long moment without saying much else, but this silence is comfortable. The burn of the whiskey is familiar and so is Cas standing just a little too close. It’s a moment Dean commits to memory.

                “I heard you,” Cas says softly. He’s staring right at Dean, into Dean. Dean is transfixed, barely breathing. He hasn’t had Cas’ attention like this in a long time, like Cas is trying to impress something on him with nothing but the weight of his gaze.

                “You said.”

                “No, when you prayed. While I was gone.”

                “I, uh, I was pretty drunk when I prayed,” Dean says. He lifts his hand to the back of his neck, glances away from Cas.

                “I hurried back.”

                “I know man, it’s okay—”

                “No, Dean, I walked day and night, directly here. I heard you pray, and I didn’t stop to try to call or find a car, because a failure would have delayed me and I couldn’t stand to cause you anymore worry.”

                Dean’s mouth is suddenly dry. When he flicks his eyes back up, Cas is still staring at him, sad and serious.

                “I get it, dude, I really do. You had a strategy and I should have trusted you.” Dean doesn’t say that this was the longest Cas had been gone in a while, that Dean had panicked. That the old fear that Cas just wouldn’t come home had resurfaced with a vengeance. Dean drains his glass, and Cas plucks it out of his hand before he can go for seconds.

                “Go back to sleep, Dean.”

                And, yeah, Dean thinks he feels tired again.

 

* * *

 

                Sam's found a hunt. He shoves his laptop under Dean's nose like he expects Dean to balk. And while maybe Dean would rather stay hunkered down in the bunker, Cas almost immediately confirms that it's probably a wraith, and that's the end of it.

                Sam already had a bag packed, and Cas just stuffs another memoir in his coat pocket, but Dean has to go collect his things. His room is still mostly a mess, with books and papers piled high. It takes him so long to find enough underwear that both Sam and Cas come by to harass him from the other side of his door.

                Getting behind the wheel of the Impala, on the other hand, is utter bliss. His baby’s seat is everything his desk chair isn’t, and he almost melts.

                He sees Sam roll his eyes in his peripheral vision, so he luxuriates a little longer before starting the car and backing out of the garage.

 

* * *

 

                The hunt goes sideways, as hunts do. The wraith never saw what hit it, but more angels show up looking to take a piece out of Cas. Cas tries to reason with them, and they spend precious seconds running their sanctimonious mouths.

                Dean slaps his bloody hand on the sigil and the room is bathed in light. It’s got a different quality than normal, warmer somehow. It doesn’t hurt so much to look at.

                He counts four shapes in the glow, then just two. When it’s gone, Cas and Sam are still standing here with him.

_He fucking did it._

                He starts to get up, but the walls seem to tip around him and he falls back against the sheetrock.  He hears his name, but he can’t tell which one of them is talking. Maybe both. A grin splits his face despite the sudden vertigo. There’s a big gap between _probably will work_ and _actually working,_ and he sailed across it. All that effort, but he couldn’t be sure it would be worth it until now.

                 Two Sams and two Cases float in his vision. He closes his eyes, because that much frowning isn’t helping the headache blossoming at the base of his skull.

                “Dean!”

                 Dean opens one eye. Sam is crouched down, trying to catch Dean’s gaze, but Cas is looking past him.

                “Pretty clever, right?” Dean says. He tastes blood. His fingers come back red after wiping under his nose.

                That’s probably not ideal.

                Cas reaches one hand out, catches Dean on the shoulder, his first two fingers brushing Dean’s jaw, but his eyes are still on the sigil. The vertigo leaves in a rush, and without it Dean can feel the exhaustion that has gripped him down to his bones.

                “I can’t do anything about that,” Cas says absently. “It will pass in time.”

                “What the hell did you do, Dean?” Sam shouts, shaking him.

                “Neat trick I learned,” Dean says. He tries to grin, but even his face is tired. If he just rests his eyes for a minute, he thinks he can face trying to stand up.

                 Just for a minute.

 

* * *

 

                Dean opens his eyes. Instead of that shithole factory, he sees his ceiling.

                “You’re an idiot” Cas says, flipping through a sheaf of papers. “Sam was very clear that I should pass that along if you woke up while he was sleeping.”

                “What time is it?” Dean asks. His voice sounds like he’s been gargling woodchips. Dean spies a glass of water on his bedside table and tries to drink it surreptitiously.

                “3 am.”

                Dean grunts. On the Dean Winchester Scale, a few lost hours isn’t that bad. Sam must’ve driven like hell to get back to the bunker though.

                “On Thursday morning.”

                Oh.

                “Sam was alternately apoplectic and terrified for the entire drive, but I think he’s settled on seething. I did try to reassure him you’d be fine.”

                Dean’s spilled some water onto his comforter. He’s not sure if that’s because there’s something wrong with him or because he tried to drink while still mostly horizontal.

                “You are fine, physically speaking. Sit up before you aspirate that.”

                “It sounds like there’s a ‘but’ coming.”

                “You dabbled in Enochian spellwork, and I’m stilling trying to figure out what you actually did.”

                “I banished the other angels, but not you. Duh.”

                Cas turns and looks at him. He used to get that look a lot, like when Dean handed him his first smartphone, like he knew down to the atom what it was made of but couldn’t fathom what it was meant to do. It’s not something Dean’s used to having directed toward himself.

                “You should try to rest some more,” Cas says, with entirely too much gravitas.

 

* * *

 

                The thudding of Sam’s footfalls in the hallway is the only warning Dean gets before he barges in. He marches right to the edge of Dean’s bed, swiping a handful of Dean’s notes as he passes the desk, and starts batting Dean around the head with his own research. Dean makes a truly undignified noise and tries to use a pillow as a shield.

                “What the fuck?” Sam shouts.

                “It worked, I’m fine, what’s the problem!”

                “You were out for a day and a half!”

                “So? No harm, no foul!”

                “You had no way of knowing that! You could have, like, turned inside out or turned into a black smear. Why didn’t you ask me? Or ask Cas?”

                Dean just shrugs.

                Sam rolls his eyes, throws the papers at him, and stomps out.

 

* * *

 

                “I’ve been trying to work out how you did it. The sigil is a contradiction in terms, it practically has no meaning.”

                That’s—that’s not what Dean was expecting. Another lecture on being reckless or stupid, sure, but not that. Cas sits down primly on the other side of the table, placing a copy of the sigil between them, and Dean hunches down a little bit behind his bowl of cereal. His hopes of a nice quiet breakfast of sugar coated sugar puffs and laughing at cryptid message boards evaporating before his eyes.

                “Well it can’t be wrong, it worked!”

                Cas taps it right in the center with one finger.

                “As it is, it’s extremely risky to use. It’s drawing on your soul for energy in addition to the background energy of the Host.”

                Dean rolls his eyes. Cas scowls at the sigil again, bringing the paper almost to his nose.

                “You can’t go and not go, Dean.”

                “Some go, you don’t.”

                “That’s not what you wrote.”

                Cas is squinting at him over the page.

                “Besides, you can totally go and not go.  You can go somewhere with someone, instead of going to a different place. We go to Vegas together, instead of me going to Vegas and you going to Topeka.”

                “That’s only very nearly not nonsense, and entirely dependent on the English conflation of two concepts.”

                “That sounds like you know I’m right.”

                Dean’s treated to more scowling, but now he’s got enough smugness to match.

 

* * *

 

                Sam buys cherry turnovers when he makes the grocery run, which isn’t a great apology as those go, but Dean still eats them and considers the matter settled.

                Cas spends way too much time frowning into space, but he does immediately notice when Dean tries to drape a dirty dishtowel over his shoulder, so all signs point to him being essentially fine. 

                Dean files the whole incident under his private win column, and settles into a well-earned post-hunt lull.

 

* * *

 

                “What you did, Dean, it shouldn’t have been possible,” Cas says as he barges into Dean’s room. Dean smacks his laptop closed, and hopes Cas assumes he was watching porn and didn’t catch any of the audio from La Usurpadora with his angel hearing.

                Dean mentally runs through the last couple of days. Unless Cas is talking about eating an entire box of store brand frosted cheerios in one go—which is obviously possible, because Dean did it—there’s only one thing that would warrant barging.

                “Are you still hung up on that, man?” Dean says.

                “Of course I am, I consider your brush with self-immolation worthy of further thought.”

                The bitchy way Cas says it makes Dean want to respond in kind, but he bites his tongue. He owes Cas better than that.

                “I saw you reading my notes, Cas. You know what I know.”

                “Dean, that’s not—I mean—”

                Cas throws his hands up, a gesture he learned from them. He busts it out when his extensive grasp of linguistics fails him. Dean shrugs helplessly while Cas visibly recalibrates his approach.

                “I felt the wave of power carry my brothers away, but it passed me by. Something held me, kept me rooted there. You did something that allowed for a duality of purpose in a single spell. It’s unprecedented.”

                “That’s kind of my thing, in case you hadn’t noticed.” Dean tries for cheeky, but Cas doesn’t relax. In fact, he goes kind of rigid instead.

                “It is, isn’t it?”

                Cas tilts his head, but he’s not looking at Dean, he’s looking through him. He stands for a long moment, eerie and quiet. Dean breathes shallowly out of some kind of reflexive reverence.

                “The spell is just a conduit, a lens to focus energy. It requires will, intent.”

                Cas seems to be talking at him, rather than to him, but it doesn’t stop Dean from asking,

                “You mean I could have just used any goddamn sigil and wished really hard?”

                Cas shakes his head, focus shifting back on what’s around him.

                “No, you constructed and executed it with specific intent. A contradictory intent, but a clear intent.  Only a human could think of such a thing. You’ve remade holy magic, because you were worried I took too long to return.”

                Cas looks a little awe struck, which normally Dean would revel in, but suddenly he’s bashful. Leave it to Cas to see right through him and then go on and spell it out. Dean doesn’t know how to respond, so, for once in his life, he doesn’t. He just looks back at Cas and feels the same conviction that drove him to make that sigil in the first place.

                Cas smiles, a small, soft expression, and Dean would swear he doesn’t even know he’s doing it.

 

* * *

 

                Cas trades the staring into space for staring into the books, retracing Dean’s steps through the library. Dean leaves him to it. He’s not sure if TV can rot an angel’s brain, but Cas had seemed hell bent on finding out at one point, and Dean’s not sure he wants to see that experiment through. The preoccupation with the books has got to be better. Besides, Sam throws an honest to god fit when he catches Cas writing in one of the old ones.

                “Cas, what the hell, that thing is priceless!”

                “It’s wrong, Sam.”

                “So write the corrections on something else!”

                Dean, like any good brother, leans in the doorway and watches his two nerds fight it out. Cas shoves the page in question into Sam’s face. Sam makes affronted noises.

                “Dean, explain to your brother that these books serve their purpose by conveying accurate information, not as historical curiosities.”

                “I’m pretty sure like half the mustard in my sandwich landed somewhere in the last third of that one, so.”

                Cas flips through the book and then adopts one of Sam’s offended faces, which Dean takes as his cue to bail.

 

* * *

 

                “Hey, Cas,”

                “Yes, Dean?”

                “So, humans are right-handed or left-handed.”

                “I’m aware.”

                “Do angels talk mostly out of one mouth or all of them at once?”

                Cas stares at Dean, squinting and leaning forward slightly, but utterly still.

                “That physiology book was deeply flawed. The entire concept is barely even relevant.”

                “That doesn’t answer my question.”

                “Some have a preference when there is nothing dictated by the mode of address.”

                “And your preference?”

                Cas somehow manages to emanate the very concept of longsuffering as he pulls over a scrap of paper and draws a circle. Cas jabs his pen into what Dean thinks of as south-east corner. Dean grins. It doesn’t roll off the tongue like lefty or righty, but knowing that Cas is ‘south-easty’ is still neat.

 

* * *

 

                “Here,” Cas says. “This is what’s drawing power from your soul.”

                “So?”

                The look Cas gives him could peel paint.

                “I mean, I don’t think it’s gonna work without it and that’s the only sigil I could find that would do the trick.”

                That stops the glaring, at least. Cas hums, studying the sigil.

                “And you draw it in this order?” Cas points out each marking in the order Dean had memorized.

                “Yeah.”

                Cas looks back to the sigil. His jaw twitches as his finger traces out the symbols. He frowns and then does it again. Dean’s ears pop.

                “Cas?”

                Cas’ head snaps up.

                “Did I say that out loud?”

                “Are you trying to pronounce it?” Dean asks, pulling at his ears. At least Cas didn’t blow out his eardrums. Nice to know angels have an inside voice.

                “Dean, it’s very hard to say. It’s—you’ve gotten the—when I try to—”

                Cas visibly readjusts.

                “Remember when we had to kill a Mayan god a few months ago? And you couldn’t pronounce the name?”

                “I thought I’d gotten the hang of it!”

                “You did not. And you’ve managed to construct an equivalent, so if nothing else I now appreciate your frustration.”

                Dean huffs. He’s made an angelic tongue twister. Go him.

                “I need to think about this. They’re must be a different way to phrase it.” Cas looks over to Dean. “One that’s easier to pronounce.”

 

* * *

 

                Dean wakes up the next morning with a new slip of paper on his bedside table. He blearily paws at it, wondering how it got there. It’s a copy of his sigil, except, not quite.

                There are subtle differences in two of the outer sigils, and one that’s entirely new. The strokes are carefully annotated and everything is numbered. It’s Cas’ handwriting, without a doubt.

                Dean rolls out of bed and shuffles down the hall, yawning as he goes. He means to hunt down Cas immediately, he really does, but he smells coffee in the kitchen, the detour is essentially inevitable at that point.

                Mug in hand, he drifts around Cas’ usual haunts before finally finding him in the observatory, reading another memoir. There’s a pen tucked behind his ear, Sam’s lectures about preserving the books still apparently falling on deaf ears.

                “I see you found the coffee.”

                Dean hums appreciatively and waves the paper.

                “Ah, and my adjustments.”

                Cas closes the book and sets it on the seat beside him.

                “I don’t recognize the new ones,” Dean says. Cas raises a very pointed eyebrow to that.

                “You were hardly dealing with complete sources.”

                Dean shrugs. Can’t argue with Cas on that one.

                “So, how’s it different? Besides laying me out for a solid thirty-six.”

                “Well, the spell can only be used to prevent me from being banished, so I thought, why not draw from my grace in addition to your soul? This way we shared the load.” Cas grins a little sheepishly. “I thought it a very human approach to the problem.”

                Dean grins.

                “We’re a bad influence on you, man.”

 

* * *

 

                “We should give this thing a dry run.”

                Cas doesn’t even bother to look up from his book. That pen’s still tucked behind his ear.

                “I don’t see why.”

                “Dry run what thing?” Sam asks. He spares a disapproving look at Cas’ book, and then turns to Dean.

                “Cas’ new sigil.”

                “There’s a new one?”

                “Yes. I rewrote it to prevent the strain on Dean. And there’s no need to test it, I know what I wrote.”

                “You said it was some kind of new magic!”

                Sam turns back to Cas with his Research Face on.

                “That was new magic? Not just Dean screwing it up?”

                “Hey!”

                “To my knowledge he created something new. And he was working with a very limited subset of the available vocabulary.”

                “Sitting right here, guys.”

                “Yes, Dean, I’m aware. When you’re in proximity it’s difficult to ignore.”

                Dean rolls his eyes.

                “So, are we gonna do this or not?”

                “The sigil is correct.”

                “Cool, then it won’t take very long to see you not go anywhere.”

 

* * *

 

                In the end, Cas is outnumbered and a combination of Dean’s needling and Sam’s open curiosity lead to the three of them standing outside in a light drizzle. Cas stands there with his arms crossed, pointedly not getting the least bit damp. Dean and Sam bicker over sterilizing the knife versus an extra dose of Neosporin later once it becomes clear Cas isn’t going to contribute any more than he already has.

                (“Look, Cas can just heal me right up. Right, Cas?”

                “I have every confidence you won’t cause yourself grievous injury and won’t need my assistance.”

                “That’s cold, man.”)

                Sam ends up standing in the limited shelter of the overhang holding the paper as Dean carefully draws out the sigil. Without the pressure, it’s easier to concentrate, but also easier to second guess each stroke. (Dean’s suggestion of summoning a known asshole was soundly rejected by Sam and Cas, and he can’t say they didn’t have their points.)

                He finishes and looks over his shoulder at Cas, who nods. Dean takes a steadying breath and places his hand on the sigil.

                There’s the light, warm but overwhelming, like it has a weight. Dean’s teeth buzz with a sudden almost infrasonic hum. But none of that compares to the sudden emotion that grips him. Dean can’t help but be swept up by it, even as he’s sure it’s nothing that originated in him. There’s a grit of annoyance overlain on something deep and roiling, something that threatens to consume him. First he thinks to call it affection, but it’s more than that, deeper and more fundamental.

                As suddenly as it came, the feeling goes. Something in Dean feels exposed, something answering what he just felt is being dredged up in spite of Dean’s efforts to keep it buried and quiet. There’s a burning in his bones, a cavernous wanting calling out to that foreign thing he just felt.

                Dean wrenches his hand away. It feels like he’s stood there for hours, but Sam hasn’t even had time to drop his hands, so it can’t have been more than a handful of moments. He spins, and Cas is still standing behind him. His arms are still crossed, but his  eyes are fixed on Dean and there’s water beading on his coat.

                “Well, it doesn’t banish Cas,” Sam says.

 

* * *

 

                Dean turns tail and fairly runs back into the bunker. He doesn’t know what the fuck just happened, but he knows he can’t look Cas in the eye. Some magical wire must’ve have gotten crossed or Cas wasn’t as right as he thought he was, but Dean would rather be out cold for a week than have this, this _thing_ burning him up, the memory of the velvet weight of that otherness.

                It’s not that Dean doesn’t know what the feeling is, it’s that he knows exactly what it is. He’s never looked it the eye, but that hasn’t stopped it from sinking its claws in before (and then later, always, inexorably gutting him). It’s a seductive, merciless trap.

                And seeing it from the outside, that’s the truly frightening part. That the feeling could have its hooks in someone else, that it could have its hooks in _Cas_. Cas deserves better.

                Dean fled to the kitchen and, acting mostly on instinct, he shoves his hand into the box of off-brand burritos in the freezer and comes up empty.

                He drank that one already, and in a brief moment of clarity realizes he probably drank all the others. That gives him a moment’s pause, but the sound of Cas and Sam in the entryway reignites his panic and he heads to garage because, well, that’s the direction he’s facing. He wrenches open the Impala’s door and pats his pockets for his keys, which he doesn’t have. He slumps until he gets caught on the steering wheel and stays there.

 

* * *

 

                Hours pass before Dean concedes to himself that he can’t actually hide in the Impala forever. He’s parched for one, and his keys have failed to materialize for another, and he’s really starting to wonder if his cut’s infected for a third. By now there’s at least a chance that Sam has gone to bed, so while it’s far too late to play it cool, there’s a chance he can delay having to deal with his freak out.

                He treads lightly back inside, listening for any signs of life. There’s nothing but the usual humming and creaking. Dean’s starting to like his chances. He grabs a few bottles of water from the hunt stash and a box of poptarts and continues creeping to his room.

                He doesn’t catch sight of anyone, and he’s starting to wonder if Cas was bluffing about angel hearing. Or if he didn’t notice anything when Dean activated the sigil. Maybe Dean imagined the whole thing. He has hours to invent an excuse if he did. He opens the door to his room.

                And there’s Cas, sitting primly on the foot of Dean’s bed. He could be part of the décor for all he’s moving, but then he arches one eyebrow at Dean, and, oh yeah, he’s fucked.

                “Hello, Dean,” Cas says, eyebrow still arched. Dean stands there dumbly clutching his rations. He had not planned for this, and now Cas is between him and his keys with that look.

                “You’ve been indisposed for a while.”

                “Yeah well,” Dean mumbles. “You know.”

                Cas just stares at him for a long moment.  Dean’s not sure, but he might not even be breathing. Angels, man.

                “I admit that there was an unintended side effect, so I suppose I have to concede that your instincts were correct.”

                That’s—that’s not how Dean expected this to go. Dean makes a noncommittal grunt.

                “However, while I feel you’ll want me to apologize for the exchange, I don’t think there’s anything to apologize for.”

                “That’s fine, that’s great. Let’s just pretend it never happened and go back to _my_ sigil.”

                “That’s unacceptable. I can’t let you put yourself in harm’s way, and I can’t ignore what happened.”

                “Well, man, I can. I can ignore for a long-ass time.”

                Cas’ eyes narrow. It might be a glare.

                "Dean do you know how long it takes for an accretion disk to become a habitable planet? I do.” Yeah, that’s definitely a glare. “I will wait you out."

 

* * *

 

                Dean sleeps on the couch that night.

 

* * *

 

                Sam is wholly unsympathetic to Dean’s exile, and makes that known by playing small town news clips at full volume about twelve feet from the couch at ass o’clock in the morning. He also only made enough coffee for himself, which is just unreasonably bitchy.

                Dean flops into a chair across from Sam, a mug of freshly brewed coffee in hand.

                At first there’s silence, excepting Sam’s laptop. Dean knows better than to bitch about having to sleep on the couch. Sam keeps flicking his eyes over to Dean, and he knows what’s coming.

                “No.”

                “I didn’t say anything, Dean.”

                “You’re gonna start that shit again.”

                “What shit, Dean? The ‘I don’t want you made a huge goddamned mistake’ shit?”

                “God, can anybody here drop anything for fucking once?”

                Sam throws his hands up.

                “No, Dean, go fucking talk to him!”

                “But—”

                “I don’t care! _Talk to him_.”

                Dean rolls his eyes and Sam sees him. Sam can and does gather his things _at_ Dean and stomps off, leaving Dean to stew.

 

* * *

 

                By about ten o’clock, Dean admits to himself he’s been thoroughly outmaneuvered. Cas is a billion-odd year old tactician, and it shows. Cas has his keys, his laptop, and his phone charger. He’s starting to smell himself, and he apparently left his deodorant in now-hostile territory. Sam won’t offer him any aid, the bitch.

                He’s bored. He knows, even now, that the boredom will be what does him in. He’s not quite bored enough to read any of the reference books but he’s tidied his already spotless kitchen and ironed all his and Sam’s shirts. Even the flannels.  

                He did Sam’s with the stale beer he found behind the detergent though, because Sam’s a traitor.

                Dean is stuck between the really annoying chores or facing Cas, and if he didn’t like these jeans bleaching the grout in the bathroom would probably win out. He slumps down the couch, idly trying to pick lint out of the cracks in his phone screen. The battery icon is glowing red.

                He doesn’t understand what Cas wants from this, other than to sate some inexplicable angelic instinct to be incomprehensible for the sake of it. The two of them are in a good place, there’s no need to go upsetting everything just because Cas crossed some wires. There was _something_ when he activated the sigil, but for all he knows an angel’s disgust feels like—like something else to a human. And what he wants doesn’t matter; he’s got what he needs. As long as Cas will slum it here with them, Dean can be happy. If Cas will just leave it alone, they can carry one like they have been.

                Dean wants a drink. There’s still some of Sam’s weird hipster beer in the fridge.

 

* * *

 

                Sam’s hipster beer is _terrible_ but it has an above average ABV, so Dean has finally worked up the gumption to go back to his own bedroom. When he thinks about it like that, it seems so pathetic, and yet here he is. He’d challenge anyone to confront a potentially angry angel. It’s not a joke.

                Dean’s getting away from himself. 

                He’s standing in front of his door, the last bottle of Sam’s beer in his hand. Cas probably knows he’s out here. He’s not fooling anyone.

                Dean opens the door. Cas is sitting exactly where he left him. He’d probably have let dust build up if Dean had waited long enough.

                “Dean.”

                “Yeah.”

                Cas doesn’t look as stern as Dean remembers from a few hours ago. He does look kind of unimpressed.

                “It’s 3 o’clock.”

                “So?”

                Cas looks at the bottle in his hand. Dean takes a swig out of spite.

                “I had expected you to take longer to come back,”Cas says, and now he stands, steps into Dean’s space. It’s as familiar as it is uncomfortable, but Dean doesn’t give ground. He’s used to Cas’ intensity by now.

                “Couch is too short,” Dean mumbles. Something about Cas softens, though Dean can’t put his finger on it.

                “Well, I learned to fight dirty from _someone’s_ example.”

                Dean huffs. Cas looks pleased with himself. Dean leans into his desk, sets the bottle down.

                “Dean,” Cas says, and now he just sounds fond. “I know you hate putting words to your feelings, but I think we’re past that. I didn’t know there would be an exchange like that, but I’m not sorry it happened. You’ve been opaque to me since the apocalypse, I couldn’t _know_ until yesterday. And you couldn’t know what you mean to me.”

                Dean clenches his jaw tight. He was keyed up for a fight, for rejection, for anything but Cas’ gentle earnestness. If Cas had been angry or dismissive or anything else, that would have been familiar. Dean had more than enough experience fighting with family. This, this other thing feels wrong. Feels like something he doesn’t deserve.

                Cas reaches out, rests his hand on Dean’s shoulder. Dean curls away on instinct. Cas withdraws, sighing.

                “I don’t expect anything of you. Having you in any capacity is privilege enough. I’ll give you your space.”

                Cas turns on his heel and starts toward the door. Dean leans forward and snatches his elbow.

                “Cas, wait. Just, just wait a minute.” Dean’s eyes roam anywhere but over Cas as he tries to pick his words. “I thought you were dead when you didn’t answer your phone. That you were burnt out somewhere I’d never find you, that you wouldn’t even get the funeral you deserve. That the bastard that did it would just be out there. ”

                Dean’s eyes land on Cas’ shoes. They’re clean now. Dean was lucid enough when Cas finally made it home to remember the mud. Had he been too tired to magic it away or had he just not noticed it for all those miles? Dean tugs on Cas’ arm, reels him in. Watches his shoes come closer.

                “I’ve lost you enough. I was ready to do anything to make sure I wouldn’t lose you again. You want me, you can have me. Just stay.”

                Cas surges forward, pushing Dean into his desk with a thump. Dean’s caught off guard, slack jawed and off balance. Cas seems happy enough with that, with his hands on Dean’s hips and his lips on Dean’s. Cas kisses like a lightning storm, all that angelic intensity and fury brought to bear. He’s only got the two hands, but there’s sensation everywhere, like the shifting hot air around a fire. Dean catches a glimpse of pin pricks of light in Cas’ pupils. He forgets to breathe under the weight of Cas’ complete focus.

                Cas pulls back. Dean feels dizzy.

                “I hope that wasn’t too forward of me,” Cas says, with all his usual seriousness. Dean feels a wash of affection and doesn’t try to fight it.

                “Nope.” This, _this_ is a language Dean understands. Its syntax comes naturally. His hands and mouth can convey what his words can’t.

                Cas seems to be getting the message.

 

* * *

 

                Sam wanders into the kitchen. It’s the kind of pristine that only happens when Dean’s avoiding something. Sam thought he wasn’t a part of that something, but he took the long way here and didn’t see hide or hair of his brother.

                Oh well, he won’t have gone far. Cas has his keys.

                Sam opens the refrigerator and briefly considers its contents. There’s the makings of dinner in here, but if he waits Dean will probably make something. He goes for a beer, but where a limited run of a stout they picked up in Denver should be sitting is empty cardboard.

                Sam marches over to the garbage where, sure enough, five bottles are sitting.

                Dean is such a _fucking jerk_ when he’s sulking. He doesn’t even like stouts.

                Sam stomps off to go find him and chew him out, for all the good it will do. Maybe he’ll get the keys from Cas and drive anywhere else. That’ll really piss him off.

                Sam walks down the hall toward Dean’s room, but stops short. Something isn’t right. Sam freezes, listening intently. There are noises coming from Dean’s room. Noises that shouldn’t be happening if there’s just one angel in there.

                Sam backpedals. Hard.

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably the only Supernatural fic I'll be posting ever. I finished it part way through season 12, and after The Fuckery I've decided I'm pretty much through. (I stayed through season 7, so I really didn't think I had a line this show could still cross. And yet.) I love these characters, but I don't care to see what bullshit the show writers contort them into, so I'm just going to stick with pretending my self-indulgent headcanons were the real gospel all along. I still enjoyed writing this fic, and since I actually finished it I figured I'd post it on the off chance anyone is still in this foxhole to read it.


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